To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Already Been
by Gracie
Summary: Brannon Braga finds himself trapped on Voyager when all the characters are slightly . . . exaggerated.


TITLE: To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Already Been  
  
AUTHOR: Gracie Kay  
  
DISCLAIMER: Star Trek and its related characters belong to the Paramount People. I didn't get any money from this (in fact, I really might get sued for this one!); I just wrote it for my own enjoyment and to try to make you all smile.   
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's just a bit of zany nonsense, as well as my first parody. This story is in no way meant to show disrespect to Paramount or to Mr. Brannon Braga. If it weren't for them, there wouldn't even *be* a ship called Voyager! And please, if you wanna flame this fic, just don't bother. I haven't taken this one seriously, so neither should you. Thanks. : )  
  
  
  
It was turning into a long day at the office. Heck, it had been a long week. A long  
month. A long season. Clustered around a big round table littered with diagrams of  
stages and scripts marked up in blue ink, sat a frustrated team of Paramount writers. And  
among them was Mr. Brannon Braga.   
  
"That plot will never work," complained a voice.   
  
"It has too many holes," chimed in someone else. "And not only that, Seven  
doesn't get enough lines."  
  
The voices were fading, and Braga's head was starting to nod. He blinked several  
times in succession, but it wasn't working. This was turning into a long day. In fact, this  
was turning into a long season.   
  
Suddenly, he snapped fully awake. The big round table had become bigger, more  
oval-shaped. Around him, where all his fellow Trek writers had been sitting, he saw faces  
he recognized. But he shouldn't have recognized them. Or at least, he never should have  
seen them like this. He looked to the head of the table where a trim little woman was  
sitting. She was wearing a black uniform with red shoulders, and her hair was short and  
almost red--  
  
"Kate?" he mumbled. "Wait a minute, how'd I get on the set? Hey, you guys," he  
suddenly raised his voice. "Cut!"  
  
Roxann turned to glare at him, her "Klingon" forehead ridges standing out. Wow,  
those make-up artists sure were good. "Shut up. We're having an officer's briefing."  
  
"Huh? A--oh, that was cute, Roxie. Real cute. What's going on? I don't even  
remember getting here."  
  
"Well, then, shut up," she said simply, and turned her attention back to Kate.   
What the heck? This was crazy. He leaned over to the dark man sitting to his left.   
  
"Tim, what in the Delta Quadrant is going on?" he quipped.  
  
"Ensign Braga," Tim intoned in perfect Vulcan non-inflection, "we are having a  
briefing. If you would please be quiet, we could finish it much more quickly."  
  
By the end of the briefing, when Kate announced, "Dismissed," Braga was  
convinced that he really was crazy. Or maybe they were, all of them. He had stood up to  
get out of this confining room and solve his mystery of what on this green earth had gone  
wrong with the Voyager cast, when suddenly Kate's voice met his ears.   
  
"Ensign Braga, I'd like a word with you."   
  
More confused than ever, he turned back to her. "Kate, what's going on? What's  
wrong with you people? It's a show! It's just a show! You're acting like--like you *are*  
Janeway, for goodness' sake!"  
  
Her blue eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, I'm 'acting like Janeway'? Mr.  
Braga, I think you need to visit sickbay."   
  
Oh, no. No telling what Bob Picardo was acting like if the rest of them had gone  
this batty. And of all the Voyager characters he would dread encountering in "real life,"  
the EMH had to be at the top of his list.   
  
On sudden inspiration, he played along. "Um, ah, no, Captain, really, I'm fine.   
Just a little tired, that's all." Would it work to call her 'Captain'?   
  
It seemed to, although that lingering suspicion behind her eyes, that Kate had  
always portrayed so well, did not disappear. "Well, then, I suggest you get some rest.   
And I also suggest that you refrain from interrupting officer's briefings by waltzing in  
twenty minutes late."  
  
He faltered for the right words. What would the script say? "Uh--yes, ma'am."  
  
She nodded crisply. "Dismissed."   
  
Just as he left the room, and just as he began to realize that this wasn't a stage at  
all but appeared to be several of them combined together to make an actual, life-size set of  
the U.S.S. Voyager--a set which he had never even known existed and must have cost  
Paramount dearly to have constructed--a voice came over thin air.   
  
"Red alert. Captain to the bridge." The voice was Chakotay's--ah! Chakotay's!   
What was happening to him?! He was actually starting to think of them all as  
*characters,* not *actors*! Then he realized that the voice had not come over thin air at  
all, but through--his comm badge.   
  
*I could definitely use a vacation,* he thought, when Ja--*Kate's*-- voice  
announced over the comm system, "Ensign Braga to the bridge." He frowned as he tried  
to deduce exactly which direction the bridge would be . . . then saw it. The turbolift.   
  
He made a mad dash for it with the ridiculous thought that he could just step inside  
and say, "Deck One, Bridge," and it would take him there. By the time he reached it, he  
recognized his folly, but some childish hope made him walk up to it anyway.   
  
And it opened for him. It actually opened for him. He actually just stepped inside  
it, and the doors closed in front of him like an elevator, as he took a deep breath and  
vowed never to tell anyone what he was about to say . . . "Deck One, Bridge." It began  
to hum, and in a few minutes the doors opened again. Ensign Brannon Braga stepped  
onto the bridge.   
  
"You certainly have a habit of making us wait, Mr. Braga," Kate snapped at him.   
Then she turned to the viewscreen--hey, the viewscreen actually showed a starfield and a  
vessel. He always thought the techies added that later. He frowned as he listened to her speech and decided that she said this way too often. He'd have to ask her later if she ever got tired of those lines.   
  
"This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. We mean you no harm--"  
  
Well, that was as far as she got, because the set was . . . shaking! The set was actually shaking like the deck of a real ship! Braga grabbed the railing to keep from falling, as did many of the others on the bridge. Unfortunately for the uncredited extras, they weren't allowed to hold onto anything. They fell all over the deck; he'd throw his back out for sure if he engaged in that kind of tumbling.   
  
"Shields down to 84 percent!" called Garrett from his station. Aw, heck, that guy   
deserved some *real* lines. Maybe when Braga finally got back to that staff meeting, he  
could make some suggestions . . .  
  
He turned to where Jeri was standing in the center of the bridge, on the upper  
deck.   
  
"Don't you guys get sick to death of these battle scenes?"  
  
She raised her eyebrows. "I am not ill, thank-you."  
  
"No, I mean, don't you--" Then he stopped. He was trying to reason with an actor gone insane. Why even bother?   
  
But she was responding, even though he hadn't finished the question. "Captain Janeway is a resourceful leader. We will prevail."  
  
The ship shook again. "Shields down to 76 percent!" That guy was getting downright annoying. Braga suddenly realized he had a splitting headache. Maybe he did need to go down to sickbay after--nah. Scratch that idea. He'd live with the headache.   
  
Kate--or was it really Janeway? He was seriously starting to wonder--was trying to   
reason with the hard-headed alien idiots who kept pummeling her ship. Finally, she gave Tim the customary order: "Fire phasers. Take out their weapons and propulsion."  
  
"Targeting scanners are off-line, Captain. If we fire right now, we may not hit the  
ship at all. On the other hand, we may destroy them completely."  
  
"Shields down to 52 percent!"  
  
"Shall I fire, Captain?"  
  
"No."  
  
Braga stared. What? She was kidding, right? But she wasn't!   
  
"If we fire on them without targeting scanners, we could kill them all."  
  
"Shields down to 47 percent!"  
  
"But they're going to kill *you*!"   
  
There was a momentary delay, and then he realized everyone was staring at him. The last protest had been his own voice.   
  
"Ensign," Janeway snapped at him firmly, "you took an oath to uphold the Prime Directive of Starfleet. You understand that we are here to seek out new life, not destroy it."  
  
"Even when that 'new life' is trying to destroy *you*?" he argued.  
  
"Shields down to 35 percent!"  
  
"Ensign," Janeway continued. "We are Starfleet officers. We must show compassion."  
  
"Show compassion on a malevolent species that's trying to annihilate you?"  
  
"We don't know they're malevolent--"  
  
"Oh, c'mon, Kate! Don't give me that 'maybe they're trying to communicate' line! They're trying to kill us!"  
  
Janeway nodded to two security officers that had appeared from nowhere on the bridge, and   
they moved to escort Braga to the brig. In a final attempt, he turned to Jeri. "Your character's not like this! It was in that one episode, what was it called, 'Prey,' and you made sense, you reasoned with her! Tell her to protect the ship!"  
  
Jeri just stared back. "Voyager is my collective now. Captain Janeway is my example."  
  
"Shields down to 24 percent!"  
  
A burst of flame from one of the consoles knocked an uncredited extra backward, and Garrett's voice came again. "Shields are depleted, Captain!"  
  
"We are here to seek out new life." Kate's unyielding voice was the last thing he heard as a huge explosion washed his vision white. "We are here to boldly go . . ."  
  
  
"Brannon? Hey, you awake?"  
  
He snapped his head up and stared into the amused eyes smiling into his. "We are Starfleet officers!"  
  
"Huh?" The guy was laughing now. "Hey, you musta had quite a dream. It's sure not respectful to fall asleep in a meeting like that."  
  
Braga realized that all eyes were fixed on him. "Oh, uh, yeah, I guess it was quite  
a dream."   
  
  
Almost an hour later, Mr. Brannon Braga found himself in his office. He was still thinking over his dream, wondering what his fellow writers would say if they knew. Really, though, it didn't take much thought to decide he would *not* be sharing it with them. He sank into his desk chair and leaned back, closing his eyes, then opened them again and sat forward to gaze at his desktop. He was startled by the tiny note, written in black ink on a red piece of paper. But it was the content of the note that startled him most of all.  
  
To Mr. Brannon Braga of Paramount:  
Best wishes. Hope you enjoyed the field trip.  
-- Q  
  
  



End file.
